


we'll get on just fine (on them long, long drives)

by janie_tangerine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Marvel RarePair Exchange, Mistletoe, Road Trips, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Steve Rogers Feels, Threesome - M/M/M, also steve's french skills come into good use, and bucky's very much into johnny cash, this totally does not feature typical christmas music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2772068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Bucky and Sam decide to show Steve a great time for Christmas and the best way to do it is going on a road trip to the Grand Canyon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll get on just fine (on them long, long drives)

**Author's Note:**

> written for tumblr user [burrburrito](http://burrburrito.tumblr.com/) for the marvel rarepairs exchange - the prompt was _first Christmas together & first snowfall_. I didn't end up managing the second part of the prompt but I hope this fits the bill ;; happy holidays! also they all belong to Marvel and not to me (sadly for me). also, the title is from [molly & the zombies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48dmjh5SCm4) (I got the idea while listening to it but really the song's general mood doesn't fit this at all XD). also the whole 'bucky wanted to see the grand canyon' thing [happened in a comic](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37300000/Bucky-always-wanted-to-see-the-Grand-Canyon-after-the-war-steve-and-bucky-37302297-500-368.png) and I still didn't get over it, hence this happened (while the whole 'steve wouldn't be a fan of christmas' is my headcanon but I haven't seen it disproved anywhere and in case it actually was I call poetic license /o\\). also the hotel I mentioned really exists or so the internet tells me and I still don't quite see how you call it a bed and breakfast, and now I'm going to shut up and post this. special thanks to tumblr users theblondemermaid and you-saved-more-than-my-life for making sure I wasn't mangling the French language <3

I

 

“You know, I can just tell my mom that I’ll see them for New Year’s. No one is going to have a problem with it.”

“And I’m telling you that there’s no need – you shouldn’t miss it after having barely seen them for six months in between missions and all. You didn’t even go to your mom’s for Thanksgiving, for crying out loud. Really. We can manage by ourselves.”

Sam raises an eyebrow as he stares up at Steve, who seems _really_ bent on winning this particular debate. “I don’t doubt that, but I’ve done Christmas with my relatives come hell or high water every year I wasn’t in the military. It’s not big deal if I spend it here.”

“Thank you, but – you shouldn’t. Really. It’s okay. Bucky and I managed on our own back in the day, I’m sure we can survive three days now.”

“I’m not doubting that either, I’m just saying that it’s hardly the spirit of the season.”

“Sam, please, just don’t go out of your way to accommodate us again, all right? Go see your relatives and have fun, you should take a break.”

Sam is about to argue, but Steve’s phone rings just then, and it’s the ringtone for Maria Hill. Steve picks it up, answers and says something about coming right up and then closes the call.

“I have to go in for the evening,” he sighs.

“Don’t tell me they’re sending you on some mission when you just got back this morning. Are they?”

“No, but I didn’t debrief yesterday, I went straight here instead of taking the detour to New York. She says that they have a jet ready at the National Airport, so I should be back tomorrow. Just – let’s drop this, all right?”

Sam sighs out loud and shakes his head, figuring that for now he’s lost this particular battle.

“Fine, go and debrief, the sooner you get there the sooner you can come back.”

Steve leans in for a quick peck, his mouth meeting Sam’s for a couple moments, then he hurries out of the door after grabbing his jacket and bike keys.

Sam sighs out loud again and wonders if he really should go and call his mother to say he’ll come after all, having this conversation for all of three times hasn’t exactly changed the eventual outcome that much. He doesn’t really like the idea of going off on his lonesome especially when Steve is obviously not telling the entire truth about this, but what else can he do? He’s about to pick up the phone when –

“You know, ‘m sorry about this.”

Sam doesn’t screech just because by now he kind of expects Bucky to make very little noise – the first few times he _had_ in fact screeched, but by now he’s adjusted to it. More or less. He looks at the door leading to his hallway, which is exactly opposite the main entrance – Bucky is leaning back against the doorframe, looking like someone who hasn’t been awake for long. Which – well, he shouldn’t be. Sam was sure that he was trying to get some sleep since he’s spent the entire night up, but who knows when he woke up.

Also, he perfectly knows why Bucky is telling him this.

“How much did you hear?” Sam asks, not trying to pretend he doesn’t know why Bucky is up right now in the first place.

“Most of it.” Bucky shrugs, then takes a couple steps forward, then stops just inside the kitchen.

“Humor me, why should you be sorry about it?”

Bucky shrugs again, the fingers of his right hand gripping the metal wrist. He goes to sit on the counter after a few seconds of staring down at the nearest chair, and looks down at his left hand again. Some of his hair is falling over his cheek – he had put it in a bun before going to bed, probably, but now it’s completely tangled even if the bun is still somewhat holding up.

“Because if it wasn’t for _me_ , he could just come with you and you’d have solved this situation already.”

Ah, right. This is the moment where Sam should tell Bucky not to be ridiculous and that he’s only been recovering for eight months and no one expects him to be able to deal with twenty people – with enough children included – at once. Never mind that Christmas Eve and Christmas itself never were a quiet deal in the Wilson household – it would be two full days of people being noisy and children being excited and curious. Not a good idea or environment, so Sam didn’t even bring up the idea of bringing them both to his mom’s. Maybe next year. He’d love to bring them both next year, same as he’d have loved to bring Steve only if Bucky hadn’t been there. But of course Steve wasn’t going to leave Bucky on his own for the holidays, and Sam wouldn’t ask it of him in the first place. Not when they spent three months going through every damned discarded Hydra base in most of the former USSR looking for Bucky – he and Steve might have kissed for the first time in the middle of month two in an absolutely appalling hostel somewhere in Belarus, but he also learned all the reasons why Steve was going through a former-Iron-Curtain road trip – the idea of asking Steve to come with him and leave Bucky to fend on his own on Christmas day sounds like the worst dick move in the history of dick moves.

Anyway, the point is that the situation would be solved without issues if Steve just agreed to let Sam go to his mom’s for New Year’s and spend Christmas with them. He really doesn’t get why he’s so stuck on it. He’s also plenty sure that it’s not because he wants to spend some alone time with Bucky only – their current arrangement of equal sharing has been proved successful up until now since it started about three months ago, and both of them get plenty of alone time with Steve anyway, so Sam is at a loss here. Still, he doesn’t want to sound patronizing or anything, especially if Bucky feels guilty about this entire mess.

“You have a point,” he concedes, “but no one is expecting you to handle that kind of crowd and it’s not your fault anyway. Never mind that I could just, you know, not go and the situation would be solved anyway. Actually – do you have an idea of why he’s being this stubborn about it?”

“Why, is he ever not stubborn about something?”

Sam snorts, conceding the point. “Right, but that’s not what I meant.”

Bucky shrugs once, then looks up at him, still not moving from the counter. “Well, maybe I have an idea. Not that he told me, but – I just think he doesn’t care for Christmas in the first place.”

“… What? All right, how about I put on some coffee and you elaborate on that?”

“Not much to elaborate,” Bucky answers, “but I’ll take the coffee. And how are you this surprised? He never told you?”

“He never told me _what_ , again?”

“That he hates it. Christmas. Or well. He used to.”

 _No_ , Steve never told him such a thing. And his surprise must show on his face, because the corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks up for a moment, as if he wants to laugh, but then it doesn’t happen – then again, it’s obvious that he’s somehow amused. And he also looks frustrated at the same time.

“Guess he didn’t.”

“You’re guessing right. Since when?”

“Since forever. I mean – you do like it, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah? I mean, it’s not like I put on ridiculous decorations as soon as December starts and shit like that, but – it’s nice? You know, the part where you get together with the people who actually give a shit about you and exchange presents and stuff, I always liked it.”

“And you told him at some point?”

“Well, it’s the kinda thing that comes up in conversation while you’re on a road trip across Ukraine. And – wait. Wait, he actually never told me his side of that story.”

“’Cause he didn’t want to be a downer. Probably. Anyway, thing is, back in the day, Christmas was somethin’ you enjoyed if you could afford it. I – I mean, from what I recall, my parents saved up for the entire two months previous so we could have decent presents and a nice lunch on the 25th, but Steve’s mom? She had to be a lot tighter with money. ‘Specially since Steve being that sick cost extra money during the year.”

Bucky stops the moment the coffee machine starts making noise – Sam hands him a cup and leans next to him against the counter. Bucky takes a sip, then another, then shrugs again and keeps on, looking down into the cup.

“Long story short, she never really had money for presents and he didn’t care, but she felt horrible about it because she thought he should get them same as any other kid, and he felt guilty because he didn’t want her to feel bad about it, y’know? Then after she died and we moved in together we were more or less always scraping for money, so we just agreed we wouldn’t give each other presents, but we’d try to put in some extra money into trying to actually buy some decent meat for lunch. Also he always used to be sick around that time ‘cause it was the coldest of the year, that and the next month. The only time we exchanged presents – it was clothes we got for each other at two different Salvation Army shops.” He drinks some more of his coffee and Sam would really like to know how can he just take it completely black and this hot, but he doesn’t ask.

“After the war broke out we spent a couple Christmases blowin’ up Hydra bases. There was hardly time for proper celebration. After that – well, I don’t know what he’s done since they found him in the ice until now, but if he was on his own, I doubt he celebrated. He just always really hated it. He said that if everyone really cared about the spirit of Christmas then we shouldn’t be still trying to make ends meet and that people wouldn’t care about the presents that much. On that – I mean, I can’t fault him. Once he told me he had saved up all summer to buy his mom something cheap and then he got pneumonia at the end of November and that money went for medicine and that was the first and only time he even tried.”

Well, shit.

Bucky finishes his coffee and sets down the mug on the counter before hopping off it.

Now it makes sense, except for one thing.

“Wait, you’re telling me that maybe the point isn’t just that you couldn’t come and he doesn’t want you to be left on your own, but that he also thinks he’d be a killjoy or something if he came with?”

Bucky looks at him like he’s very impressed. “Could be. Also – well, if it’s the two of us he doesn’t have to pretend he likes it. ‘Cause he knows you do and he wouldn’t wanna spoil it for you, if I read him right.”

The thing is, Sam is pretty damned sure that Bucky is reading Steve extremely right. It makes entirely too much sense, and Bucky might still be far from completely well-adjusted, but considering that from what both Sam and Steve got out of him since the day he showed up at the door of their Ukranian cheap-ass motel room, the guy remembered Steve before he remembered his own name after seventy years of perpetual brainwashing, Sam isn’t going to doubt that he knows what he’s talking about.

“Crap. So, you’re telling me I should just go to my mom’s and pretend you never told me this while you two go about your lives same as usual?”

“I’m tellin’ you that’s what _he_ wants you to do because he thinks it’s the right thing and all that jazz.”

“And what do _you_ think we should do?”

For a moment Bucky looks surprised, then he looks down at the empty mug and grabs the coffeemaker for a refill. Sam can see that his right hand is shaking ever so slightly.

Right.

Sam is the last person on this planet to harbor homicidal thoughts, but when he sees Bucky having this kind of reaction whenever he’s asked his opinion – and this is a pretty mild one – makes him harbor plenty, especially if directed at Hydra in general.

Bucky drinks half of the mug before he finally answers.

“I think he should be out and have some fun. You should bring him with you – he might be a killjoy in the beginning, but – he likes being with people. And he’d like to be with you. He deserves a decent time and I shouldn’t be the reason he doesn’t –”

“Woah, stop right there. You know he wouldn’t resent you for that and I wouldn’t either?”

“I know that,” Bucky sighs, “doesn’t mean I don’t feel like he should.”

Sam lets that go – it’s more than enough that he verbalized it in the first place.

“Yeah, sure, so we should leave you here to spend Christmas on your own?”

“I can get by.”

“That’s hardly the point, you don’t have to,” Sam groans, figuring that there has to be some way none of them gets the short end of the stick.

He thinks for a while, but he can’t come up with anything. Bucky finishes his coffee and looks like he’s about to head back to his room, and that’s when Sam realizes that maybe there’s a way out.

“Hey, wait a moment. As far as you know – did he ever, like, want to do anything for Christmas in his entire life?”

Bucky thinks about it, then shakes his head. “Not really. Or if he did, I don’t remember. Though – no, it’s nothing.”

“What is nothing?”

Bucky looks down at his hands again, then back up at him. “It’s not just about Christmas. But – back then, we hardly could travel, you know. I don’t know who started it but we’d always say we’d go see the Grand Canyon together one day. I’m sorta sure it was me, but anyway he was pretty down with the idea. When we had the money and everything. Then we shipped to Europe and – well, obviously I never went. I guess he did by now, though.”

“Actually, he didn’t.”

“… He didn’t?”

“Back when we were out there following you,” Sam says, trying to recall that conversation, “he said he had traveled the States a bit back after the whole alien invasion in New York. So I asked him if he saw the most famous places and so on, and he said yes, but when I mentioned the Grand Canyon he said that he didn’t. And he never said why so I didn’t press.”

They look at each other for a long moment, and then Sam knows he’s starting to grin.

He thinks he knows what they could do.

“Do you think you can handle three days on a car?” Sam asks.

“Are you saying that the three of us just drive there for Christmas, possibly without telling him first?”

“What if I was?”

Bucky stares at him for a long moment.

But then he actually grins, in a way that Sam has maybe seen from the pictures in the Smithsonian or the history books but never in the flesh – it’s not quite as spontaneous, but it’s indeed that same smile – and holds out the right hand. “I think I can handle that.”

“Deal, then.” Sam grins back as he shakes Bucky’s hand, and if you had told him one year ago that he’d be conspiring with his boyfriend’s boyfriend so that the stubborn idiot would have a decent Christmas day for probably the first time in his life, he’d have probably not believed you.

As it is, he thinks he can entirely work with it.

It doesn’t take long to plan – they exchange ideas throughout cooking dinner and eating it. By the time they’re done, the plan is pretty much done and not too complicated.

Said plan consists in telling Steve that the three of them should just take a few days outside the city to chill out and if he catches on the moment they go outside New Jersey they’ll just tell him it’s a surprise and he shouldn’t worry until they actually get there. They spend some twenty minutes going through the internet and when they agree on it, Sam finds a bed and breakfast in Sedona which offers fucking apartments – can you even call it a bed and breakfast – and which has a free one for some kind of miracle. The place even has a spa and a pool – if anything they can treat themselves at least one of the three full days they’re there. If everything goes according to plan, they’ll be there on the 23rd and they’ll leave on the 27h, and it looks like the weather might even be nice.

“I was thinking,” Sam says as he prints out the receipts, “maybe we could try to – I dunno, make it a bit less like a regular trip.”

“Meaning?”

“What if you two go have your moment in the Canyon during Christmas Eve while I stay in the room, put up some discreet decorations, break out the eggnog and maybe put out a few presents? I mean, if the guy never got one that wasn’t Salvation Army clothes maybe he should. I’ve been there during high school once I think, we can just go see it again on the last day. I don’t need to go there first thing.”

Bucky thinks about it for a moment, then grabs the laptop from Sam. For a moment Sam marvels at how quickly he finds what he’s looking for on Amazon, but then again he forgets that he’s sitting next to a guy who told Steve straight that he was going to the next Stark Expo come hell or high water – _and they’d better have flying cars this time_ – and who still looks at his smartphone as if it’s the best thing that’s happened since the invention of sliced bread. Well, no, he looks at Steve like he’s the best thing that’s happened on this planet since forever, but it doesn’t change that he really loves his technology. 

When he turns the laptop towards Sam, Sam can’t help chuckling out loud.

“I don’t see why they have to be discreet,” Bucky says.

“You know what, you got a point. I say you should buy that.”

Bucky smiles another small, satisfied grin and adds the items to his cart.

If for a moment Sam thinks that he can see why Steve would have rather died than fight the man sitting next to him, and if it’s not the first time he’s thought that in the last few months, well, no one has to know.

\--

They hadn’t said anything about buying presents for each other rather than just for Steve, but when Sam gets out of the house the next morning to go shopping for presents, he decides that he’s going to get Bucky something too – he’d have done that anyway because after everything he’s been through the guy deserves at least a Christmas present.

The only problem is that he can’t ask Steve and even if they shared a roof for eight months, it’s not like he knows what Bucky might like or want – and not because he doesn’t pay attention, but mostly because not even Bucky himself knows that half of the time – that’s why everyone in between them and the Avengers has started throwing stuff at him so that he might actually find out what he likes in general. The only thing he’s dead sure of is that the guy _does_ have an unhealthy love for scifi, and he has also read most of what novels Sam had at home in the last few months, so he ends up finding a bookshop and getting a selection of what he figures is basic second half of the twentieth century science fiction literature. He gets out of the store with what the clerk assured him was the perfect mix of Vonnegut, Asimov, Dick and another three or four authors whose name he can’t remember whatsoever – it never was his favorite genre – and then moves on to Steve. At least he has a clear idea there – he gets art supplies that Steve keeps on saying he’ll buy one of these days and which he somehow never gets around to buy himself, making sure that it’s stuff he can safely hide in the car’s trunk.

He also doesn’t say anything when a few days later a number of packages that he hadn’t ordered show up on his doorstep and Bucky grabs all of them before he can even open one.

“You need to put them in the trunk before we leave?” Sam asks as Bucky heads towards his room.

“Uh, yes?”

“Then find me before we leave, they’re going alongside mine. We can put them in the back while he’s out running.”

“Sounds good.”

Bucky is balancing all of the packages with his left arm, Sam notices, and – well, screw it. He holds out his fist, but he only gets a confused stare in return.

“What?”

“Come on, with all the pop culture catching up you two fossils do in your spare time you don’t know how a fist bump works?”

“Oh. _That_ ,” Bucky sighs, and then he rolls his eyes just slightly before raising up his own fist and humoring him.

Sam thinks that he really looks forward to Christmas this year.

 

II

 

“And you guys planned this _when_?”

“While you were debriefing in New York,” Bucky answers while Sam piles duffel over duffel in the trunk – their presents are hidden in the back as they had agreed. “And come on, I know that you don’t like Christmas, but that’s exactly why we’re doing this. I mean, no reason for the two of us to sulk around, right?”

“But your mother –” Steve starts, turning towards Sam.

“My mother is more than happy to see me at New Year’s and to see you both next year, and she didn’t sound particularly heartbroken about having one less mouth to feed. Come on, you two might be pushing a hundred but you don’t have to be hermits. You can take a trip for a few days.”

“You’re so hilarious,” Steve protests, but it’s obvious that his resolve is wavering.

“Steve, come on, neither of us has had a break in ages and you haven’t either,” he says, cutting into the conversation. “And it’s just – going to see the Grand Canyon. It’s hardly your regular Christmas stuff. And we aren’t doing presents or anything.”

“Right, but you didn’t need to go out of the way to do it.”

Bucky is plenty sure that both he and Sam roll their eyes at the exact same moment. Before any of them can answer, Steve raises up his hands. “Right, right, I got it. I’ll go get a couple of things and I’ll be right back.”

True to his word, he’s back in a few minutes, another duffel slung over his shoulder and the shield strapped to his back. He puts it in the trunk along with the bag.

And then –

“I’m driving,” he says.

“No you’re not,” Sam interrupts him. “What’s the point in it being a surprise if you drive? Never mind that you haven’t slept ten hours in total since you’ve been back from New York.”

“But I don’t need to –”

“Steve, I _know_ you could drive one day without stopping, but the point of this stint isn’t making you even more tired, so nope, I am driving and in case we fall behind on the schedule, your other boyfriend back there can take over.”

“I didn’t forget how it works,” Bucky says before Steve can protest. “And if there’s no traffic I don’t see what’s the problem.” Sure, there’s the part where he’s mildly terrified because he hasn’t been out of the house for one day straight since he set foot in it the first time, but at some point he’s doing to have to push himself outside his comfort zone and this is a good time as any – as much as he wishes he could avoid it, he realistically knows he will have to. Especially if he wants to occasionally watch Steve’s back again one day – he knows he couldn’t handle it right now, but he wants to be able to handle it just in case. Anyway, he’s sure he could handle it, and if it turns out he couldn’t, well, he knows no one would see it as a malfunction.

He’s working on believing that for good himself, but they don’t need to know that.

“Fine,” Steve concedes after a moment. “Fine, you drive.”

“Great. And actually, you can both get in the back.”

“What – why?”

“Because he needs to make sure you don’t try to guess where we’re going,” Sam replies, winking at Steve, and then he opens the car’s door and gets in the driver’s seat. Steve doesn’t look entirely convinced but he follows Bucky in the back, pressing up against his side, and Sam starts the car a moment later.

\--

Steve more or less tries to get the destination out of them until they’re past the West Virginia border before giving up and saying that if the two of them are this set on being secretive, he’s just going to catch up on some sleep. Then he promptly puts his head down on Bucky’s shoulder and he’s out in less than a minute – damn, he really needed a vacation.

“Wow,” Sam says from the front, obviously glancing at them in the rearview mirror, “remind me to tell Hill to stop overworking him next time they call me in.”

“Duly noted,” Bucky answers, making a mental note of also making sure that the next time he sees anyone involved with the Avengers Initiative he makes that clear, too. He’s sure he can be mildly terrifying still, if he puts some effort into it.

“Where did we say we were going to stop for the night?”

“Lexington. I could book a room?” They haven’t booked hotels for the stops along the way, but he could definitely manage to find one, bless the smartphones. If only someone had told him in the thirties, he’d have totally forgotten about flying cars – smartphones are fucking amazing.

“Let’s see if I’m dead tired when we get there – maybe I could make it as far as Tennessee and save us time. Meanwhile, I think I’m going to put on some music.”

“’ust no _Trouble Man_ , you always play that one,” Steve mumbles from somewhere near Bucky’s shoulder before promptly passing out again.

“You’re no fun,” Sam sighs, and Bucky kind of wants to laugh but doesn’t – it wasn’t enough to not make him think about it. He hates it – the fact that he’s only managed to do it a handful of times and when the reaction totally caught him by surprise. And being told that it’s only human that he’s still not quite there yet helps just until a certain point.

“Whatever. I suppose that since he’s out, it’s time for you to sample some masterpieces you probably have missed. Natasha sent me some updated playlists. She says everyone at the Tower chimed in.”

“Just no fucking disco music.” Bucky knows he’s completely failing to sound threatening, but he still remembers the last time he was in New York and Clint Barton decided that both he and Steve absolutely had to be introduced to it.

He might be down with the whole ‘you have to find out what you like’ spiel, actually he’s damn well down with it, but disco music is definitely something he does not care for.

“Well, that means you’re still not as hopeless as he is.” Right. Because Steve actually liked disco music. He said it was uplifting. _Uplifting_.

“Right,” Sam says, “since we’re headed for the realm of country music, let’s see if you can dig that. I just hope Clint put some decent stuff in it.” He stops at the side of the highway, picks out a playlist from his iPod, attaches it to the car’s radio and starts driving again when the music starts.

Steve sleeps for the next three hours straight – by the time he opens his eyes, his head has fallen from Bucky’s shoulder to Bucky’s leg, they passed the Kentucky border and Bucky has found out that he loves Johnny Cash, that he can dig Willie Nelson and Steve Earle, that he can’t care less about Dolly Parton and the Carter Family and that he positively loathes modern country except Keith Urban, and he has made Sam swear on everything he holds dear that he’s not going to tell Steve that. Sam had had to stop the car because he was laughing hard enough to cry, but he had promised, and Bucky really hopes he keeps it. He doesn’t even know why he doesn’t hate that ridiculous cheesy music as well and he’s not going to dwell on it.

The playlist is also smack in the middle of some song that Bucky isn’t particularly enjoying, but that he isn’t hating it either. Hank Williams, Sam had said.

“Sam,” Steve groans, “how many times did I say that I loathe country music?”

“Don’t tell that to the press or they’ll have a field day with _Captain America_ hating country. How do you not love the genuine –”

“Sam, _no_.”

“… It’s not all bad?” Bucky feels like he has to spend a word for Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash was amazing.

“Traitor,” Steve replies, still not moving his head at all. Bucky reaches down with his left hand, cards metal fingers through Steve’s hair and Steve promptly nestles closer. He can see Sam smirking in the rearview mirror.

“So, found something you like at least?” Steve says while Sam shuts off that particular playlist. Bucky tells him.

“Figures he’d like the man in black,” Sam says, and Bucky does grin a bit at that one – not that Steve sees it, but he’s pretty sure Sam does. “Hey, Bucky, how long is it until Lexington?”

Bucky doesn’t need to dig out his smartphone to do the math.

“About two hours.” It’s still three in the afternoon.

“Right. Guess I can drive on for a while longer. So, country was half a success and half a disaster. Steve, you ever got around to check Nirvana out? Weren’t they on that little book of yours?”

“Not yet,” Steve replies.

“Right. Guess it’s time to introduce you two dinosaurs to grunge music. You’re gonna hate it, though.”

“Which one of us?” Bucky asks, still running his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“Him. You have the face of someone who could like it.”

Bucky shrugs and tells Sam to put it on.

Two hours later, they passed Lexington and Bucky’s ears are bleeding – he positively hates most of the music on Sam’s _grunge_ playlist with maybe one exception, but he’s waiting for it to be over because Steve downright loves it.

Sam looks very perplexed by how this particular playlist turned out, but Steve is positively into every single song that plays and Bucky isn’t going to stop him from enjoying it.

But damn, country was a lot better.

Thankfully the playlist ends one hour past Lexington and by that point Sam looks visibly tired.

“Should we switch?” Bucky asks. “Or we can stop in Elizabethtown. I can drive tomorrow.”

“Or I could –” Steve starts.

“No,” Bucky and Sam answer at the same time, and Steve snorts against Bucky’s leg – right. That was downright either creepy or hilarious and Bucky’s going to stick with hilarious for everyone’s sake.

“Let’s stop in Elizabethtown,” Sam decides. “Can you find us a room?”

Bucky doesn’t dignify him with an answer and finds them a Holiday Inn in ten minutes, just as Sam pulls into town. 

He’s also dead tired, and so he tells Sam and Steve that he can just stay in the room while they get dinner – neither of them protests, which he’s entirely grateful for, and he spends the next hour lying down on the bed, closing his eyes and not quite sleeping – if he does, he’s going to be useless after and he won’t catch any tonight, but just laying back and relaxing is enough to shut off his brain for a bit. He needs to send a fruitcake to Banner for Christmas or something - that time he set Bucky down and taught him some basic yoga and meditation techniques has been a lifesaver. When he feels rested, he grabs a small notebook out of his bag – more advice from Banner, in regards to the whole _make things straight in your head_ deal, and he starts writing down everything that somehow feels relevant – _I spent a day in a relatively enclosed space and nothing out of the ordinary happened_ , _I really like Johnny Cash_ , _Mudhoney or whatever the name was are insufferable_ , _it’s still not time to tell Sam about that certain thing_. He doesn’t specify what it is in case he forgets to put the notebook in its place and any of them opens it to see what it is, since they don’t know he actually keeps one.

By the time they’re back he has put everything back in his bag. He doesn’t feel like sleeping much, but if he has to drive tomorrow he can’t afford not to, and he tells Steve and Sam to take one of the two king-sized beds – after all, Sam has been driving the entire day.

It’s still not time to disclose his plan to bring the whole sharing equally thing to a new stage, which is something he has been thinking of for a couple of months and is in fact the thing he hasn’t managed to tell Sam yet, especially since he wants to be extra sure of any possible reaction to the proposal, and anyway if he ends up having a rough night he knows that Steve will hear it.

He doesn’t have a rough night, for some kind of miracle, and the next day he assures Sam that he’s totally up to driving; he really is, as long as the grunge playlist isn’t even touched. Sam breaks down in laughter over the diner eggs they’re eating for breakfast and assures him that it’s not going to happen, and by the time Steve comes back from the bathroom, Bucky has finished his own breakfast and he can’t stop thinking about asking the damn question.

But not yet.

“I suppose that if I ask where we’re going, I won’t get an answer,” Steve says as they get into the car. Sam goes in the back with him; Bucky goes for the driver’s seat.

“You suppose perfectly right,” Sam replies with a grin. “So, you’d rather have silence, do we put on some new music or do we put on something you won’t hate? Your call, man. Steve can deal with Johnny Cash if that makes you drive better.”

Steve pretends to look deeply hurt at that – but he’s not, and resting yesterday obviously did him a whole lot of good – and Bucky considers the options.

Then he decides that he shouldn’t push things too much.

“Just put on something that I won’t hate,” he firmly replies as his foot presses down on the gas pedal.

If it all goes as he hopes, he could make it at least until Oklahoma. And since he did get some sleep, he could probably even get to New Mexico if they don’t stop for the night, but maybe that would also be pushing things too much.

Sam tinkers a bit with the iPod and finally comes up with a playlist made strictly of things that he’s openly said he liked until now – throughout the next few hours, he finds out it’s yesterday’s country that’s not Keith Urban, Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane and a few classical pieces, and when it’s over just as they cross into Tennessee Sam doesn’t even ask before playing it again.

He doesn’t talk to them for the entirety of the drive – he does, in fact, make it as far as Oklahoma, and they only speak when they need to take a rest stop and so on, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted even if the road is half-empty. And he didn’t mind sometimes glancing at the two of them in the back to find them either kissing or whispering to each other. The fact that they just left it up to him to drive without checking twice while they go about their business makes a knot show up in his throat some four hours into the trip, but he swallows it down and keeps on driving. And damn but he likes it – it feels nice to be in control, to just worry about driving safely on a road that is mostly empty while knowing that they’re trusting him completely with it. By the time they pass Tulsa it’s dark already and the coffee they brought him from the rest stop a while ago was pretty damn good, and he thinks he’s good to go for another couple hours at least. As it is, Steve is reading a book – good thing he doesn’t get car sick anymore, because in the thirties he damn well used to – and Sam is checking texts on his phone, and the Cash song he liked best from yesterday has just started again on the playlist.

He doesn’t realize he has been singing along until he hears his own voice humming along with _[I was shackled in chains in a cold freezin’ rain, but I’m free from the chain gang now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgxbcFJEehk)_.

He doesn’t even have the time to feel surprised at himself because then Sam has to talk.

“Damn, you could have said before you didn’t have a bad singing voice. Next time Stark is proposing drunk karaoke I’m sending you forward and betting my money on you.”

“Shut up,” Bucky mutters, feeling his cheeks go red, but then he catches a glimpse at Steve’s face in the rearview mirror. He has a smile so blinding that Bucky almost loses control of the car when he looks at it, and he’s looking at him with that same almost adoring expression that Bucky knows is reflected on his own face when he looks at Steve – he’s been told by Stark more than once, for that matter, and he has to swallow and look back on the road lest he crashes the car for real.

After that, he realizes can’t sing along anymore, not consciously, but when half an hour later he realizes that he did it again and that he’s singing along to _Folsom Prison Blues_ he doesn’t stop the moment he figures it out and he doesn’t stop Sam when he joins in and Steve laughs openly at the both of them.

He smiles ever so slightly to himself all the way until the next town over, when Sam forces him to stop and find them a room because _no one should drive for seventeen straight hours and I’m about to fall asleep I don’t know how you two do it_ , and as he falls asleep with Steve’s arm wrapped around his waist, he resolves that he’s going to ask the damned question before they go back to DC.

\--

The next day, Steve insists to drive and they let him – Sam goes in the front to tell him the road without disclosing the destination and Bucky gets some more sleep. This until they pass the Arizona border.

“Guys, how many other borders do we have to cross before we get there?” Steve asks, obviously not expecting an answer.

“We’re done crossing borders,” Bucky answers from the back. “You’ll realize soon enough.”

Steve doesn’t pry any more and Bucky bears the grunge playlist until they actually see the sign for Flagstaff and for the Canyon. He sees Steve’s eyes go wide in the rearview mirror – he’s probably putting two and two together.

“Sam –”

“The hotel is in Sedona,” Sam answers, “and you can ask questions when we get there.”

“But –”

“Steve, you heard him, just drive.”

Steve visibly swallows and keeps on driving.

And that’s when they end up stuck in a long-ass line because somehow someone managed to cause a crash on a nearly empty highway, which mean it takes them a _lot_ longer than planned to get to Sedona – along the way, they try out what Sam calls the ‘sad Nineties indie’ playlist, which both he and Steve end up disliking not so much because they don’t like the music but mostly because it’s fucking depressing. By the time they arrive at the bed and breakfast which does not look like a bed and breakfast at all, they’re dead tired and it’s fucking cold, but everyone has seen the sign just outside the city saying how close the Canyon is.

When they get out of the car and grab their bags while the owner says he’ll check the apartment for them and then bring out the keys, Steve looks at the two of them as if he doesn’t know whether he wants to cry or not.

“You know,” he says quietly, “you could have said we were going here.”

“Yeah, and where was the surprise in it?” 

“Sam, can it. By the way, how did you know –”

“He told me, genius.”

Steve turns towards him – he doesn’t seem that surprised. He’s also obviously fighting back a grin. “I should’ve known,” he says.

“Says the one who didn’t go to see it because I wasn’t there.”

“… And how do _you_ know about that?”

“Sam there told me you didn’t go even if you had gone on your lonesome on a road trip through the States, wasn’t that hard to put two and two together. Damn, you know I wouldn’t have felt offended from the afterlife if I really had died?”

“It just felt wrong,” Steve sighs, his shoulders slightly hunched. For a moment, Bucky sees him before the serum – it was exactly the same posture he used to take sometimes when he felt particularly down, and then thankfully the owner is back with their keys.

The apartment is probably ten times the biggest one he and Steve shared in Brooklyn back in the day. It also has two different rooms, a fully furnished living room and a functioning kitchen, but they’re all too tired and they agree to just go to sleep for the moment. Bucky picks the empty room, saying that he’ll be fine for the night, and when he writes down in the notebook he puts _tomorrow evening and not later_ next to _never make me listen to Radiohead again in my life_.

\--

Of course, when the next day they tell Steve that Sam is supposed to stay behind, Steve tries to complain, but Sam is a damn good actor when he wants to and sells the story that three days out on the road took the toll out of the only non-enhanced person in the room and that they can still go before leaving, never mind that this whole going to the Grand Canyon thing was _their_ thing in the thirties and he thinks that they should have a go at it alone the first time.

While they’re on the way to the park, Bucky gets a text.

_Your presents are safely under the tree – by the way, next time you’re wrapping mine too, damn you and your deft fingers. You could make that for a living and that’s highly unfair._

Bucky quite loses the fight against the grin spreading out on his mouth.

“What was that about?” Steve asks, sounding quite delighted about it.

Bucky shrugs and puts his metal hand on the one Steve has on the shift.

“Nothin’ special,” he answers, and he knows it’s kind of a lie but for once he doesn’t feel bad about it.

\--

By the time they’re back, it’s dark and it’s snowing fully, and Bucky feels tired in all the best ways – thankfully not many people were around on Christmas Eve, and so he didn’t have to deal with being surrounded by large crowds, and damn but the Canyon is every bit as beautiful as they had thought looking at the pictures in the papers back in the day. And fine, he also loved that they had held hands pretty much the entire time and if anyone noticed they didn’t point it out, and so maybe right now he feels pretty cold and the good kind of tired, but he hardly minds.

Especially because he can’t wait for what happens now.

He keeps his eyes on Steve’s face as they drive back in the apartment and it’s entirely worth it – Steve’s mouth fall open as he takes in the living room being covered in red, white and blue decorations which Bucky picked exactly because they were terribly corny. There already was a tree up – he doesn’t know if Sam had talked to the owner before, maybe he did – likewise covered in white, red and blue lights with four packages under it. Bucky’s are definitely wrapped up more nicely than Sam’s. Also, there’s mistletoe hanging on the opposite side of the wall and the moment Bucky shuts the door behind them, Sam comes into the room with a tray carrying three glasses and a bottle of eggnog.

Steve is still looking at the two of them like he can’t make sense of any of it.

“What have you done,” he finally says as Sam comes closer.

“ _He_ picked the decorations,” Sam replies cheerfully as Bucky grabs two out of the three glasses of eggnog.

“Didn’t you say this wasn’t meant to –”

“We did, but it was a lie for your own good. Also the fact that Christmas used to suck back in our day doesn’t mean it has to suck always, and be thankful we both agreed that the music would have been overdoing it. Here, play along and have a drink, you fucking earned it.”

“We all did,” Sam says as he puts down the tray and grabs his own.

Steve looks at them for a moment, then takes in the state of the room again, and then he smirks in a way that Bucky is sure hasn’t happened since the damned thirties before swallowing down the glass in one go.

“Since I can’t even get drunk, I should hope you brought more than just that bottle.”

Sam breaks down laughing and Bucky doesn’t quite do the same, but he somehow feels like the day it might happen is coming closer and that’s plenty enough as far as he’s concerned.

\--

Steve has opened the third bottle of eggnog by the time eleven thirty approaches and he says that he has to go to the bathroom and also take a short shower, but promises he’ll be back by midnight.

Bucky takes the occasion to clear up the plates – he had gone straight for the kitchen and told Sam that he was going to cook since Sam had spent the entire day putting out the whole show. He used to cook back in the thirties – he always was better at it than Steve – and some three months after coming home with the both of them he felt well enough to find himself something to do when they weren’t around, so he picked it back up and by now he definitely can pull off a fairly decent Christmas dinner. But he also isn’t going to let Sam clear up the table since he also bought the groceries on top of decorating, so he proceeds on doing that instead.

When he’s done, he comes back to the living room just as Sam closes a phone call.

“That your mom?” He asks, coming up closer.

“Yeah, and she’s not too sad that I’m not there, so don’t even try it. By the way, that was some good roast.”

“Why, thanks. It was my mom’s recipe, actually. I didn’t even remember it until three days ago,” he blurts out, not sure of why he even did that, but the look in Sam’s eyes is suddenly a lot softer, and Bucky swallows down another knot that suddenly shows up in his throat, and he’s about to go check the presents when –

“Why, look at the two of you.”

Suddenly Steve is standing next to them and glancing at some point over their heads. Bucky raises his eyes and –

Ah, shit. The mistletoe.

Steve is grinning like there’s no tomorrow.

“So,” he says after a moment of silence, “are you two going to honor the spirit of Christmas that you like so much here?”

Well, this wasn’t the way Bucky quite thought it would go. He hadn’t even noticed the damned mistletoe. Still, it could be the occasion to test out the waters for real.

So he turns towards Sam and tries not to let it show that he might be getting slightly nervous here.

“Never let it be said I don’t come through on this kinda thing,” he shrugs, taking a step closer. “I’m game.”

“Nice,” Sam says, and then he moves closer as well.

 _Here it goes then_ , Bucky thinks before putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder and kissing the guy already.

Truth to be told, he expects it to be fairly chaste. And at the beginning, when their lips meet, it _is_ , but right when he’s about to move back (reluctantly, though – Sam’s mouth is shaped all different from Steve’s but he knows he totally wouldn’t mind finding out more in depth about how it’s not the same in every possible way) Sam’s lips part ever so slightly, and his hands have somehow ended up on Bucky’s waist and Bucky doesn’t really think about it before he parts his own lips as well.

At that, Sam leans back just slightly and whispers, “Should we give him a show?” against his mouth, and –

“Bring it on,” Bucky replies, knowing that he’d have used that exact same tone a life ago and marveling for it because while he knows he can’t ever be the person he was in the thirties sometimes he just longs to be able to do that kind of thing without second-guessing himself. And then Sam is kissing him again _for real_ and he’s using tongue and one of his hands is fisted in Bucky’s hair and Bucky is entirely too happy to kiss back with the same spirit, never mind that he’s been wanting to for a couple of months and maybe he doesn’t need to bring that up anymore because it’s going to be fairly obvious.

They’re both breathless when they move back, and then Bucky turns to look at Steve –

Who is staring at the both of them with eyes that look a darker shade of blue and slightly flushed cheeks, and –

“Was that my Christmas present?” He asks a moment later, breaking the silence, and at that point Bucky just can’t stop himself – he’s laughing hard enough tears leak out of his eyes a moment later, and he hears Sam joining him at some point but he’s too busy reveling in the feeling, and Sam’s hand is still gripping at his waist when he finally stops.

“What do you say, is this his present or is it _everyone_ ’s present?” Sam asks, still sounding breathless, and Bucky wants to ask for a moment _did you guess just now or did you know already_ , but then he figures it doesn’t matter.

“Dunno,” he finally settles on, “I spent enough time finding him a present, I don’t think he needs another one all for himself. It could be everyone’s present. If everyone’s on board with it.”

“Damn right I am,” Steve says taking another step forward so that he’s also under the damned mistletoe.

It’s long past midnight when they finally do get around to move from under it and go open the damned presents and Bucky doesn’t think this entire holiday could possibly get any better.

 

III

 

“And by the way, if you two assholes had actually told me, I’d have given you my presents long before now.”

Steve almost wants to break down laughing again when both Sam and Bucky notice that while they were too busy staring at each other under the mistletoe he had put another couple packages under the tree.

“Wait,” Sam says dropping down next to him on the floor, “you actually brought presents even if you thought we weren’t going to actually, y’know, celebrate?”

Steve shrugs, looking at the both of them before staring down at his hands. “Well, yeah? I’d have brought them regardless.”

“If I ask you whether he always had this whole sort of martyr complex thing back in the thirties you’re going to answer yes, right?”

“Why asking me anything if you already know the answer?” Bucky replies, but it’s obvious from his tone that he’s finding it downright hilarious.

“Right, right, let’s just go ahead and do this so we can move on to better things, like possibly sharing that king sized bed in Bucky’s room?”

Steve is _entirely_ on board with it – damn if he hadn’t been hoping that things between the three of them might come to this point, and the prospect of spending Christmas day in bed with the two of them is making him entirely re-evaluate the spirit of the holiday. While he hadn’t really expected them to actually bring presents, as he’s entirely serious when he says that being with both is already enough of one, he figures he’ll play along.

It’s probably sad that this is the first time in his life he actually does things properly in this sense, but he’s going to not dwell on that too much.

They end up opening Sam’s first – Steve feels ridiculously touched the moment he opens his own and sees the set of charcoal, pencils and brushes he always eyed on the shop next to Sam’s place and which he never somehow bought himself, and he’s about to thank Sam profusely, but then the first thing he sees when he raises his eyes is Bucky’s face as he looks down at the stack of books in his lap and at that he wants to cry for real. He can see from a couple titles that it’s all science fiction novels and Bucky is looking at the books as if he can’t quite believe that someone actually went through the effort of getting him ten at once, never mind something that he most probably will like since it was the first thing that he had found out he loved all over again since he realized he was actually allowed to have preferences. 

“Why, thank you,” Bucky finally says. “Just one would have been enough, but –”

“Shut it,” Sam says, sounding fond more than anything else, “you finished every damned novel in the house and you’ll probably be out getting more after a month, one would have been ludicrous. Now let’s see what you got us, because I’ve been curious since those packages arrived home.”

Bucky snorts and punches him in the side while Sam reaches out for his perfectly wrapped present and Steve does the same for his. Sam’s is actually damn huge and Steve waits for him to open it.

It’s a stack of Marvin Gaye LPs, half new and half used but in what looks like mint condition. Sam looks at Bucky with something that is close to awe now.

“… I found a good deal on Ebay,” Bucky mutters a moment later. “And you always keep on saying that this shit sounds better on vinyl but they never sell it anymore, so.”

“I think,” Sam says slowly, “that tomorrow you might be thanked very thoroughly for this.”

Bucky slowly grins back – it still looks a bit alien on his face, as if he’s trying the expression out, but it’s coming a lot easier and Steve could really cry for it. “I’d say I’m game. He can watch, right?”

“He can even join in as far as I’m concerned,” Sam says while winking at him, and – yeah. Yeah, Steve is definitely down with that. But he also has to open his present, and Bucky’s staring at him now, so he gets down to it. Even if Bucky really shouldn’t have, Steve has more or less told him in every corny way under the sun that him being alive and here with him is enough of a present for ten lifetimes.

He unwraps the package to find himself in front of a blue nondescript box. He opens it and –

“ _How_?” He chokes, looking down at a pile of sketchbooks that he knows were his in the thirties but that he was sure were in the Smithsonian or wherever stuff classified as property of the government is stashed – he grabs the first one, which has a bunch of drawings he made in the first three months of 1936 and which was definitely on display at the last exhibit. He moves it out of the way to find another stack of fifteen other sketchbooks and the one he had brought with him to Europe and that he left abandoned on the ground the moment Peggy told him that Bucky was missing.

“Well, I saw ‘em at the museum when I went after – after the helicarrier. I didn’t realize it until later but – that was your stuff, y’know, I didn’t see why they had to put it on display.”

“I asked for them back actually,” Steve says, his voice not steady at all. “But they told me that they were government property? And I was sure this one got lost,” he says holding up the one he brought to Europe.

“Yeah, I asked Hill in September. When we went to Stark’s to check the upgrades on the arm. I told her it was ridiculous and then I asked Stark if there was some way to get them back while we were in the lab. He said he had no clue but that’s why he hires lawyers to do it, and he put a couple on the case. I think. I have no clue, but the next time we went he hands me the box saying the lawyers had earned their paycheck, and by the way he found another one that was obviously yours in his father’s things a while ago and he might as well give it to me. He said he had no idea of how he had it, but – well, he did. I wish I could have found something better but –”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Steve interrupts before shoving the box out of the way, grabbing Bucky’s neck and hauling him in – he kisses him without holding back and as Bucky kisses back he thinks that he really couldn’t have gotten anything better at all. Bucky’s lips are ripe red when he finally leans back, and his pupils are slightly blown, and he doesn’t try to finish that damned sentence.

Good.

Steve also doesn’t ask for details because he knows that Bucky and Tony do have a fairly complicated balance going on and Bucky still doesn’t get why Tony didn’t tell him to fuck off the moment they showed up on his doorstep for the first time.

(Steve knows. Tony told him that he had seen the leaked files first thing after Natasha put them online, and since Steve had found out about Howard’s death long before they actually found Bucky, he had called and ask him if it was fine for Bucky to even come to Stark Tower. Tony had said that he had read the entire file, that he had had three months to digest it and that no one in their right mind would have considered Bucky personally responsible, never mind that he knew a thing or two about being tortured by terrorist organizations that want you to do their bidding. He doesn’t know if Tony and Bucky had that conversation – they probably did – but he knows that it must have been a big deal for Bucky to ask Tony for such a favor, and he takes it for what it is.)

“And thank you,” he says.

“Steve, you sound right out of a fucking Sparks novel,” Sam mutters, and Bucky chuckles again before reaching out and grabbing Steve’s present.

“Right. Let’s quit with this heart to heart and see what you got us, Rogers. I can’t believe you brought presents thinking that we wouldn’t get you any,” he groans.

“Count me in for that too,” Sam agrees as he grabs his own present.

Steve is maybe slightly worried as they open them – after all, it’s the same thing for both and he didn’t even ask, but he just couldn’t shake out the idea after he had it and he hopes they’re fine with it. 

Before looking at what’s in the envelope wrapped in red paper, though, they both see the other thing that went along with it.

He did get himself a decent sketchbook a few months ago, even if he never got around to buying the art supplies, and he tore out two pages that he put in each envelope. Each is a portrait, more or less – Sam’s is of the day they met. Steve still remembers his face as Sam brought up a hand so Steve could haul him up and that’s the one he went for. Bucky’s – well, he sketched it the day after he came back from New York – he wasn’t feeling like sleeping and Bucky was on the couch reading a book and hadn’t even noticed that Steve was in the hallway.

(Steve never fails to feel his stomach tighten when he thinks about it – the first five months or so, Bucky would have never failed to notice that someone was in the same space as he was.)

He also looked so very into it, his hair half falling on his face because he was keeping it in that loose bun that more or less fell apart by the end of the day, and Steve had to at least do a quick sketch. He had finished it later, and he liked the result, also because Bucky really did seem relaxed and as if he wasn’t thinking about anything other than moving forward with the plot, and the fact that he could do it at all after everything –

Steve needs to stop or he’s going to say something very embarrassing.

“Shit, I didn’t even realize you were there,” Bucky says, sounding half worried and half sort of pleased with it.

“Yeah, well, you looked engrossed. Anyway, that was just because that envelope really seemed… sad. If I left it on its own.”

“Keep on downplaying your talents,” Sam sighs as he opens the envelope at the same time as Bucky. And –

“Is that a ticket to _Paris_?” They speak at the same time and then look at each other as if they don’t know whether they should be crept out or not.

Steve thinks it’s hilarious, though.

“Well,” he says, “you both keep on saying I should take a break. Which is – probably right. You,” he turns to Sam, “said a couple times that it was a damn pity that our road trip in Europe had to cover every run-down Hydra base in the former USSR because you’d have rather gone to nicer places you hadn’t been yet. Like Paris.” Then he turns to Bucky. “You, on the other hand, spent the entire time we were there in WWII saying that when we were done dealing with the crazy cults we should have come back there because it looked amazing but you can’t exactly see places properly during a war, and I’m pretty sure that if you ever went back it wasn’t what you imagined in the day. Seemed like a good compromise? Also I picked May because they tell me the weather is nice and I figured it’d give time to prepare and stuff, but if you’d rather go somewhere else –”

“Rogers, don’t spoil the moment. If we went anywhere else I couldn’t tell people that you brought us to _the city of love_ and it wouldn’t cement your reputation as a complete sap, and far from me to put a stop to it.”

“He’s actually right,” Bucky agrees, the traitor, but he’s looking down at the portrait like it’s holding some kind of secret and Steve won’t go pry. “Also, who am I to put a stop to it when it means I can listen to you speak French all the time?”

“Oh, he speaks French?”

“Dernier taught us, but he always was better at it than me. I mean, I understood just fine but I never was any good at speaking it. But you really do want him to speak French to you, Wilson. It’s an entire other experience.”

Steve knows that he’s going red in the face, but Bucky’s being such a little shit that he can’t help it – never mind that as far as he’s concerned Bucky can keep on doing it forever.

“Really. Why didn’t it ever come up?”

“I don’t think I had any reason to speak French to you?”

“Too bad. Now I’m curious. How about you show me and make him plenty happy at the same time?”

“Du moment que je choisi la musique qu'on écoutera pendant que tu conduis,” he answers, and at that – Bucky sends him a look that would have made his knees weak, had he been standing, and Sam’s eyes go wide but at the same time he looks definitely intrigued.

Who’d have known.

“Well,” Sam says after a moment, “I didn’t understand a word, but I entirely second going someplace where you have to speak like all the time.”

“He said as long as you let him pick the music while you drive,” Bucky clarifies, and Steve could burst with how happy he looks. He could burst with how happy he feels.

“You drive a hard bargain, but if you don’t speak a word of English until tomorrow evening I think I could be down with it and patience if I’ll end up hating Nirvana more than you do.”

“Don’t worry.” Bucky sounds downright cheerful now. “You can just let me drive back until DC so he’s stuck with Johnny Cash.”

“All things considered I just might,” Sam says before he grabs Steve’s wrist and drags him forward so that he falls in between them not too gracefully – then again, Sam hadn’t warned. “After all, him singing _I’m Free From the Chain Gang Now_ wouldn’t give me much of an headache. Your grunge playlist for three days straight, on the other hand…”

“ _Casse-toi_ , Sam,” Steve retorts, figuring that he’ll give Sam a piece of his mind since he wants to play this game.

“… Did he just insult me?”

“Well, he told you to shut your trap. I think.”

“Wait, I was joking. More or less. You weren’t?”

“Absolument pas. Et d'abord, je ne deteste pas _toute_ la musique country,” Steve feels his own grin stretch wider. He needs to make this point clear.

“Wait. Wait, what did he just say?”

“That he doesn’t hate all country music. Seriously?”

“Pas quand tu chantes,” Steve delivers as straight as he can, because that’s true, and he hopes that it got through that he’s absolutely not joking about this. Also, if this really is his lucky day –

It is because Bucky’s cheeks turn a darker shade of pink and he looks halfway flattered and halfway embarrassed, and at that point Sam is shaking his head and moving up to stand.

“You know what, I’m sure that was something ridiculously corny that I don’t even want to know lest my teeth rot and fall down at once, and with that, I think we should all move to the bedroom.”

“You’re officially the smart one out of the two of you,” Bucky says as he follows him and stands up as well, his cheeks still flushed.

Then they both turn in his direction and hold out a hand each.

“So, you’re coming?”

“Comme vous voulez,” he answers promptly as takes Bucky’s left hand and Sam’s right one and lets the two of them haul him up.

Right. He really was an idiot when he thought that the best course of action would have been ignoring the holidays as usual and just let Sam go on his own, he’s going to give them that. Now he thinks he has never looked forward to anything as much as he’s looking forward to the next year with the both of them, or more pragmatically, as much as he’s looking forward to the next few hours.

So maybe he’s going to re-evaluate his opinion of the holiday – it might have taken him almost a century but he finally thinks he got the spirit, and he’ll be entirely too happy to let Bucky drive on the way back if it means that he can hear him sing that he’s free from the chain gang now for three days straight, never mind that Sam looked like he’d be down with it as well from what he saw the first time.

Maybe when they’re back he’s going to tell them that they were right and that he couldn’t have asked for a better gift, overall.

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Re the only French thing I didn't translate in-text - it's 'only when you're the one singing'.


End file.
